IT Projects and some Major Pitfalls
In this, and some subsequent posts, we are going to review some of the top pitfalls that can cause projects to fail, not reach their full potential or not harvest the benefits that were predicted at the outset of the project.
If you work in IT, more than likely you are working on projects of some shape or size and they can be big or small. In addition, it doesn’t matter what your role in IT is – network administrator, developer, computer operations, help desk support or telecommunications – your business has projects that need to get done and you are expected to do them.
Your business expects you to deliver and has little tolerance for project failures. As usual, this year has brought lots of new technologies and opportunities. Particularly in insurance and other financial services, this is the year of IT automation and cloud computing. Businesses have an appetite for projects so there is usually no limit to the number of IT projects businesses wish to undertake.
Maybe your business has a dedicated team of full-time IT project managers. Some smaller businesses have a person who wears many hats and one of them reads “IT Project Manager.” Either way, we’re going to review the top pitfalls that can cause many projects to fail or not reach their full potential.
The IT Project Defined
For the most part, IT projects that are delivered for a business are a temporary endeavour, they are usually short term and are designed to create or implement a new (usually better or more cost-effective) product or IT-based solution for your business. Often these projects are geared towards replacing old servers or systems, developing or implementing custom or third-party IT solutions. All projects, IT based or otherwise, suffer from three basic constraints:
- Cost of the project
- Time to test and implement
- Project Scope, or more importantly scope creep
Another thing that projects have in common is that they usually cross over multiple departments within a company and need require effective, clear and well managed communications between the groups that are involved in the project. Here, we will discuss some real-world project issues that we all have to deal with, how we can avoid these issues in our business and complete our IT projects on time, on budget and to the required level of functionality.
The project failure points that we will discuss are not in any particular order. However, they are each crucial to the success of any project and next week we will start with what we consider to be some of the most important constraints on IT and Business projects.
How JMR Consulting UK Ltd can Help your Business
We have worked very successfully with some of our major clients to
deliver fairly complex business projects. Here at JMR Consulting UK Ltd we promote the use of project management best practices on all our projects. If you want advice or help with your projects please contact us.
To find out more about how we can help you with project management, please get in touch by using the contact form, sending an email to info@jmruk.com or calling us on 0845 052 0900.